The Biomimicry Database is a project of Rocky Mountain Institute and the Biomimicry Institute. We would very much like your feedback on the tool.s usefulness and usability. (To leave feedback, email jer@biomimicryinstitute.org.)

Types of Information

The Biomimicry Database has six types of information:
Challenges: Challenges are human design problems that need solutions.
Strategies: Strategies are potential solutions to those problems; almost all are biological solutions, but some human-invented solutions are also listed.
Organisms: Organism records describe specific organisms, listing their taxonomic categorization, a description of what the organism has/does that might be inspiring, and data on the organism's environment.
People: People/User records contain a description of a person/group relevant to a topic, contact information, an image, profession / field of study and whether they are an expert in their field(s), and a listing of the user's database entries.
Citations: Citation records contain basic bibliographic information and abstracts for papers referred to in Challenges, Strategies, or other records providing sources for further research on their respective topics.
Products: Product records have descriptions of biomimetic products, including company names and contact information and product availability.

Records in the database will usually contain links to other related records; these links can be "direct" (for records which are unquestionably part of the same topic) or "indirect" (for links which may be more speculatively related). Links with an asterisk after them are records which have linked to the record you are viewing; links without an asterisk are records which are linked to from the record you are viewing. (Most users do not need to worry about this.)

Each record also has space for Comments at the end. This can become a discussion board for people who would like to add their own insights or questions to the records, and if you are a registered user with your own person-page, you can use the comments feature on your page as a blog or discussion group for collaboration.

Searching and Browsing

The Search tool in the top bar allows you to search by keyword across all database records. You can use Advanced Search to narrow down your search to particular record-types or even particular fields within each records type. Your search will return a list of .hits. in a summary-view. You can click on a record to view it, or you can click on the hierarchy button next to the record to see where it appears in the Browse hierarchy. This will allow you to find other related records which may not have the keywords you searched for.

The Browse tool in the left side-bar allows you to have a hierarchical table-of-contents view of knowledge in the database. As there is no one perfect way to organize knowledge, there is not just one category scheme in the Biomimicry Database. You may select a different category scheme from the pulldown list, and registered users can also create their own. Every category scheme which gets created is then visible in the pulldown list to all users of the database, allowing people to share their knowledge-organizing efforts with others. These hierarchical relationships are separate from the "Related Records" links that appear in each record, though there is some overlap, depending on the Browse category scheme used.

Using keyword search and hierarchical browse together should help users bridge terminology boundaries, allowing them to find ideas that each type of search would not turn up by itself. Using a hierarchical browse with many available category schemes should help users bridge discipline boundaries, allowing them to cluster ideas which are normally considered parts of separate fields.

Saved Records

While searching, browsing, or viewing individual records, you can temporarily store records in your Saved Records area. This will allow you to keep track of some records while viewing others. Your list of saved records can be viewed as a list with summaries in the main frame, by clicking the "view saved" button; it can also be viewed as a simple list in the Browse bar by choosing your saved records as the category scheme to browse by.

Moderation

We intend all of the knowledge in the Biomimicry Database to be accurate and trustworthy, so we have a moderating process. When records are added to the system, they are labeled with a yellow-and-black stripe saying .Not Yet Reviewed.. Once a moderator has read the record and verified its accuracy, the label will be removed. Records without this label can be considered reliable information by our standards.

User Access

You do not need a user account to use the database. You only need an account to contribute data to the system or use the Saved Records feature. If you would like to become a contributor, please email jer@biomimicryinstitute.org.

Further Information

For more information and a detailed tour of how to use the database, see the Quick Guide to the Biomimicry Database (7-page pdf document).